Confrontation
by Rykahna Wil Troi
Summary: A long-awaited confrontation between Buffy and Spike
1. Confrontation Part 1

Confrontation (1 of 2)  
Rykahna Wil Troi  
Rykahna@yahoo.com  
  
Rating: PG-13  
Category: A little more than a vignette, not quite a story  
Spoilers: "Wrecked"  
Disclaimer: Go ahead, sue me--it'll be funny.  
Further disclaimer: Being new to the whole fanfic gig, I don't employ   
a beta reader, so errors are due to my own innate idiocy.  
  
Summary: A long-awaited confrontation.  
  
  
He feels her presence without even seeing her, sitting in his armchair in front of a television set barely worthy of the name. She enters his crypt like a cold wind up the back of his neck, making his hackles rise. Of course, the culprit could possibly be the draft of frigid autumn air that accompanies the opening of the door, but the sublimated remnants of the poet in him likes to imagine it's just her.  
  
"Slayer," he says slowly, calmly, not turning to face her, nor rising from his chair. It takes every shred of willpower he has to remain immobile when he wants to vault from his seat and grab her by the arms and shake her, or kiss her, or pummel her, or all of the above. It's been five days. Five torturous days that have dragged on longer than the last 120 years ever dreamed of doing. Five days that he's had to rein himself in when his instincts shouted at him to seek her out and force a confrontation, to keep pressing and pushing until she either yielded to the truth or staked him.  
  
An excess of reticence has never been one of his multitude of sins, not since the day he died. It goes against the grain, sitting on his hands and waiting. He's spent over a century charging heedlessly toward whatever happened to be the object of his desires. Whether it's killing a Slayer or invoking the wrath of an angry mob or laying it all on the line for the turn of a single card, the roll of a die, he gambles. It's what he's all about, taking risks, existing for the moment, for the next thrill, the next challenge, the next set of insurmountable odds. At least, he was. Until the day he flattened the sign marking the Sunnydale city limit and found the rules had gone and changed without consulting him. Bloody inconsiderate, that.  
  
After a long moment of silence--during which she could conceivably be creeping up behind him to stake him in the back--he rises from his chair and turns to face her. She's still standing by the door, her arms crossed over her chest, staring at him with her lips pressed together in a shrewish, displeased line. Her look isn't--quite--a glare, but it's not far from it. On the plus side, there's not a stake in her hand (though he has entertains no doubt that she hasn't got one or more tucked away somewhere on her) but on the bad side, she doesn't look like she's here to snog, either. Of course, with her it's hard to tell.  
  
"So...what's brings a nice, upstanding, morally righteous young priss like you to this side of the tracks at this time o' night?" In another Herculean feat, he manages not to imitate her defensive posture and instead strikes a slouching, nonchalant pose against the sarcophagus.  
  
"Priss?" She lifts one elegantly arched eyebrow, her tone derisive, and the game is entered. "That's a pretty lame insult even for you, Spike."  
  
"If the stake fits...well, you know where to shove it."  
  
"Don't tempt me."  
  
He rolls his eyes. Her threats are hollow--he's fairly confident about that. If she had any intention of staking him, she would have done it long since. There's a chance he's wrong, of course, but taking risks is what he's all about, right?  
  
Right.  
  
He resists the temptation to cross his arms over his chest again, and asks instead, "So, what's it to be then, Slayer? Information? Some dire emergency likely involving the Niblet? Some dreadful, guilty secret you can't bring yourself to confide in anyone else? In the mood for something to abuse for a while, or would you like to just get straight to the shaggin'?"  
  
"I. Am not. Sleeping. With you. Ever. Again." She says firmly, but the telltale flutter of the accelerated pulse in her throat and the hint of a flush down her neck hint at a different story. Unbelievably, however, it's not one he's particularly interested in at this moment.  
  
"Good," he snarls. "Because I'm not your whore, and I won't be used like one. Had a hundred and twenty bleedin' years of that, and I don't really fancy doin' it all over again, thanks ever so."  
  
Her eyes widen--that got her attention, surprised her, maybe even dismayed her. He can practically read her thoughts. She thought that if she came to him, his first and foremost goal would be to get her back into bed. She could allow him to seduce her after a token resistance and walk away in the morning with a clear conscience, conveniently forgetting that it was she who came to him. It never occurred to her that he wouldn't be interested in playing that game.  
  
She rebounds admirably, however. He can see her hardening, pulling into herself, putting up defenses that *aren't* designed to be easily breached. Her eyes narrow, and her tone becomes acidic. "Compare me to a murderous fiend who's psychopathic even by vampire standards? Charming, Spike. I don't know the last time I felt so flattered."  
  
He snorts. "You have more in common with Drusilla than you could possibly imagine. Difference is, she was mad and couldn't help herself. You...you just seem to play the games because you like it."  
  
"I'm not listening to this," she mutters, turning her back on him and stomping toward the door. Cue Spike to chase after her, right?  
  
He can do that.  
  
He beats her to the door, crossing the crypt in a few bounds and slamming the heavy iron portal with an echoing bang. "Not a chance, blondie. You came to me--*you* sought *me* out--and you did it for a reason, and neither of us is leavin' here until we have this out."  
  
"Think you can stop me?" she scoffs, pulling back a fist and letting it fly toward his face like a rocket.  
  
He catches it in his own fist an inch from his nose, squeezing with crushing force that would have turned the hand of a normal human to pulp, and uses the tension in her own arm to push her away from him, stumbling down the steps deeper into the crypt. His voice cuts her off as she tenses to spring at him.  
  
"No! You raise another hand to me, Slayer, you bloody well better be prepared to follow it up with a good staking. Next time we dance that way, it's the last, you got that? Next time, only one of us walks away when it's over. Now, tonight, we play things a bit different, and unless you think you got it in you to dust me, you better just wrap your pretty little brain around the idea that you and I are goin' to have a nice, long chat--right here and right bloody now."  
  
Slowly, she stands down. She plants her hands on her hips and assumes her bitchiest tone. "So--what? You're going to just hold me hostage until I say what you want to hear? Pathetic much, Spike? Last time you tried that trick, it didn't get you anywhere either, if you recall."  
  
"You have no idea what I want to hear, so don't go assumin' you do." He sits on the steps, guarding the door and leaving her plenty of space to pace the confines of the crypt like a caged cheetah.  
  
"Oh, please! Like you haven't made it completely obvious by now."  
  
"The problem with you, Slayer--" he ignores her sotto voce sarcastic entreaty to *please* tell her what her problem is-- "is you can't handle anything that doesn't fit into your nice, tidy, morally upright worldview. Good guys are the good guys, bad guys are the bad guys, never the twain shall meet, and what all. That's why I'm here waiting for scraps of kindness from you while Red is all comfy-cozy in Chateau Summers, despite the fact that the witch put the Niblet in mortal danger just a few days ago and you know I would protect her with my life. You're a hypocrite."  
  
"And the charm just keeps on coming!"  
  
"If you're looking for Prince Charming, princess, you're in the wrong palace--"  
  
"You are *so* right about that."  
  
"--but strangely enough, you're here anyway. So what's that say about you, I wonder?"  
  
"I should have taken the left at Albuquerque?"  
  
"So let me venture a guess at how you thought it would play when you walked through this here door..."  
  
"Oh please do. Your imagination is so much better than anything that can be found on television these days."  
  
"...You thought you could come here and let me persuade you to indulge in another go-round or ten, and if that didn't happen, you thought you could start a fight and then one thing would lead to another and the result would be the same..."  
  
"Hello? Earth to Planet Ego, come in, Ego!"  
  
"...Either way, you could go back home and convince yourself that it was all a mistake, a moment of insanity, that I was the one who started it all and that it would never, ever happen again--until the next time it happens. And so on with the hot and cold routine, until I get brassed off enough to finally kill you, which is probably what you've been hoping for since you first got back. I mean, why else would you make like you're suddenly wantin' my company, if you're not hoping the monster you're confidin' in will get the impression your guard is down and pounce, right? You're either too big a coward or not *quite* selfish enough to go ahead and off yourself, so you thought maybe there was a way you could get me to do it for you, because I'm the Big Bad, right? Soulless, remorseless killer and what all."  
  
She has stopped her pacing now and is staring at him in shock. "You are so, *so* wrong."  
  
"Am I now?"  
  
"Yes! I am *not* suicidal, and even if I were, I could certainly find a better way to pull it off."  
  
"No one's blamin' you, luv. It's a fittin' way for a Slayer to go, not pathetic like slicin' your wrists or hangin' yourself. I warned you about it last year. You were on the verge even then, long before this whole thing with your mum and the Niblet and your own death all went down, and now, after bein' where you've been and wantin' to be back there, it's only natural--"  
  
"Stop! Just stop!" she shouts, her face pale. "You're wrong. I don't have a death wish. You were wrong back then, and you're wrong now."  
  
"Right, then." He nodded and pursed his lips thoughtfully, the tip of his tongue protruding from between his teeth. "If that's true, pet, tell me just one thing--what are you doing here?"  
  
"Obviously being an idiot," she mutters, storming toward him. He's on his feet in a split second, his back to the door as she comes to a halt in front of him. "Let me out of here, Spike. Now."  
  
He shakes his head. "I already told you--neither of us is leavin' 'til we've had this out."  
  
"There's nothing to have out! You're delusional. You're insane. That chip has fried your brain, or your steady diet of pig's blood has given you Mad Cow disease or something. Whatever it is, it isn't my problem. Now get out of my way before I really do stake you."  
  
"Then you'd best do it, Slayer, 'cause it's the only way you're gettin' out of here without answering my question." With a queer sense of deja vu, wondering if Drusilla's not the only vampire prone to prophesying, he grabs the collar of his black t-shirt and rips it to the waistband of his jeans and then spreads his hands wide, emphasizing his vulnerability. "Here you go, luv. Go to it."  
  
"What the hell are you doing?" she demands, aghast.  
  
"You're goin' ta stake me good an' proper, right? What are you waitin' for, then?"  
  
"What, so I can have killing you in cold blood on my conscience? You think you can use that to blackmail me into staying? What happened to 'next time we dance, it will be the last?'"  
  
"You mean like you're trying to blackmail me into killin' you?" he snarls, springing the trap closed. "You think you can just force enough confrontations that sooner or later, I'm going to lose control and do what comes naturally to us vampires, right? The fact that the chip no longer seems to work on you really works in your favor on that angle, doesn't it? I've been askin' myself for months what I would do if the chip stopped working and I was finally able to be a proper vampire again, and I've decided I don't want to know. I'm not going to dance to your tune until you're dead just so I can go out and meet Mr. Sunrise the next morning, providin' your gang doesn't get to me first. So you either stake me, right here and right now, and end this thing, or you answer my bloody question!"  
  
"I--" she backs away from him, shaking her head wildly back and forth.  
  
"Why are you here, Buffy?"  
  
"I can't--"  
  
"Why are you here?" Harsher, this time. Louder. More insistent. He stalks forward as her back comes up against the sarcophagus, stopping her short.  
  
"Don't, Spike--"  
  
"Don't what? Don't ask for the truth from you? Or don't tell you the truth?"  
  
"Don't..." Her throat works convulsively, her mouth moving wordlessly.  
  
"Damn you, Slayer!" he can feel himself losing control, grabbing her by her upper arms much as he wanted to when she first entered and giving her a shake, shouting in her face, "Answer the question! Why the bleedin' hell are you here?"  
  
"I don't know!" she yells, bringing her forearms up between his to break his grasp on her. She winces as his fingers are jerked from where they were wrapped around her arms, and he can see red and white stripes on her pale skin that never regained its mild pre-mortem tan that might very well darken into bruises later. She quickly retreats from him, and it's just as well she's not near him now; finding the chip has stopped working on her has led him to some serious questions about what he's capable of doing. He doesn't think he's got it in him to kill her, either deliberately or in a rage, but there's no telling what she can provoke him to, and he doesn't trust her to save herself and stop him, or kill him, if he loses control. She's almost as the door when his soft sneer stops her.  
  
"You're a coward, Summers."  
  
She turns on him, her momentary discomposure gone, her eyes cold. "You really are pathetic, you know that? So--what? I'm supposed to stay now because you double-dog dared me to?"  
  
"No. You're supposed to stay because right now, you're sending out gilded an' engraved invitations to every bad-ass wannabe in this town. Now, sooner or later, whether you're actively looking or not, you'll find some nasty that will be only too happy to take you up on your offer and he'll walk away thinking he's just had a real good day. And then who's gonna watch out for the Niblet? Giles is gone. Red's a disaster waitin' to happen, and do you really think the Li'l Bit could handle losing you again?"  
  
The fight seems to go out of her abruptly. She leans against one of the pillars in the crypt, rubbing a hand over her face. "I'm tired, Spike."  
  
He knows she's not speaking of the late hour. "I know you are, Slayer," he says flatly.  
  
End of Part 1 


	2. Confrontation Part 2

Confrontation (2 of 2)  
Rykahna Wil Troi  
Rykahna@yahoo.com  
  
Rating: PG-13  
Category: A little more than a vignette, not quite a story  
Spoilers: "Wrecked"  
Disclaimer: Go ahead, sue me--it'll be funny.  
  
Summary: A long-awaited confrontation.  
  
  
  
The silence that settles over the crypt is deafening and eternal. It is not, however, punctuated with the slamming of the door as she leaves. He realizes he's waiting for her to do just that, knowing that after the gamble he just took, he's fresh out of cards to play. This could very well be the end of it all for both of them.  
  
"I don't know why I'm here," she says finally, her murmur shattering the silence between them. "I don't know why I do anything anymore. I've spent the last few months just--reacting. All I know is it felt right, talking to you when I got back. Maybe because you'd been on the other side of death, too. You understood where I was coming from. Or maybe because you *are* the other side of death, and that's--that's where I wanted to be. Maybe because you're one of the few people I don't hold responsible for...for what was done to me. And then you told me to stop coming to you..." her voice is accusatory and she folds her arms across her chest again, withdrawing from her unaccustomed openness.  
  
"Sorry, luv," he shrugs with contrived nonchalance. "Maybe a better man than me would be happy to be a convenient soundin' board when you needed one and never ask for anything in return. Maybe that's what the poofter or soldier boy would've done, but as you're so keen on remindin' me, I'm not a man. I'll never be a man, and I can't change what I am. I never made any secret of wantin' you, of being in love with you. Now maybe it somehow confirms for you that I'm the monster you like to think I am that I can't handle havin' you around all the time and not havin' you, but that's the way it is. It hurts. I'd rather be left alone to try to get over this thing than endure that, even if it means leaving you without someone to pour your heart out to. I won't settle, pet. It's not my style."  
  
"Then why haven't you walked away?" she challenged.  
  
"I tried, luv, remember? *You* came after *me*. Twice. Or was I supposed to play the gallant there, too, and deny what you were offerin' because I was somehow supposed to intuit that the next day you'd do a complete turnabout and act like it never happened?"  
  
"Well why not?" she asks defensively. "You're Mr. Percepto-Guy, or so you like to think."  
  
"Yeah, but I'm an evil, disgustin' thing, right? Maybe I was enjoyin' myself a bit too much to give two bits about the whole foresight thing. Maybe I'm holdin' out a wee bit too much hope--a situation, mind you, that you didn't help, seeing as how I need a bloody Buffy/English dictionary these days to translate the mixed signals you're givin' off. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment," he mutters self-derisively.  
  
"Well, Spike, whatever it is, you need to let it go. We both do. This--this *thing* that keeps happening between us--it can't, okay? It just--can't."  
  
"And why the bloody hell not?" his voice rises as he begins to stalk toward her angrily. He stops himself, barely, when he sees her retreat a step backward toward the door. His hands clench into fists at the effort, but his feet remain where they are.  
  
She stares at him in bewildered amazement. "God, Spike--you have to ask?"  
  
"Yeah--yeah, I do, 'cause I don't think you even know why yourself when you stop and think about it."  
  
"It's not like I haven't said it before," she replies, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "You're a vampire, Spike. I'm the Slayer. Hello to the conflict of interest. Not to mention the whole 'ick' thing."  
  
He can't help himself--he smirks, and blurts out his retort injudiciously. "That's not what you were saying the other--"  
  
She holds out a hand to cut him off. "Stop, okay? Please. Just--don't. Don't go there. I need to put that whole fiasco behind me as soon as humanly possible."  
  
"Well, I hate to keep belaborin' a point, Slayer, but again I have to mention--here you are," he spreads his arms in an expansive gesture indicating the crypt around them. "You're sayin' you need to put it behind you, but your actions are tellin' another story, 'cause you just keep coming back for more."  
  
"Which is just judgement of the very *worst* possible kind," she snaps. "Let's pretend for a minute that you're not completely whacked and that maybe--just maybe--you have vaguely resembling a point about me having a death wish...If that's the case, do you really think it's a great idea for me to be around you in *any* capacity? Not just any vampire, but a vampire who has made a name for himself killing Slayers, and who came to town with a major league hard-on to add *my* name to the list of Slayers done in by William the Bloody. Who spent years devising schemes--pathetic schemes at that--to kill me..."  
  
"Pathetic?! Hey!"  
  
"...Who has attacked and terrorized my friends, plotted to kill me even AFTER you got the chip that prevented you from attacking me outright. Whose idea of dating is chaining me to a wall and threatening to kill me unless I told you there was a chance for us and whose idea of basking in the afterglow is bragging about finding an alternative way to add yet another Slayer to your list of conquests. Forgive me for being less that wooed by that bio, okay?"  
  
"So which is it that's botherin' you the most, luv?" he asks with a smug calm he doesn't truly feel. "The history or that I dared to compare you to the other Slayers?"  
  
"C: all of the above! All of it combined to make this whole thing one huge, gift-wrapped package of wrong topped with a big, bright, fluffy bow. That smarmy comment about the other Slayers just hammered home the rest of the bad."  
  
"Uh huh. I see. Rather sucks to be rated based on what you are rather than who you are, doesn't it?"  
  
That stops her cold. "What, so you're going to try to turn this around on me? You said what you said because you were trying to teach me a lesson? Get back at me? Is that what you're saying?"  
  
"You tellin' me from the instant you jumped to your feet and started playing the outraged miss that you weren't just thinking of me as 'a vampire'? That you weren't comparin' me to vampires on the whole and one vampire in particular?" He snorts in disgust. "I said it before and I'll say it again--you're a hypocrite, Summers. Angelus did you and yours a worse turn than I ever dreamed of doin', but you welcomed him back with open arms because you decided his circumstances were special enough to warrant it. Willow could have gotten Dawn killed the other night, but she gets the benefit of the doubt because she feels really bad about it. I can't change what I've done, Slayer, and I'm not going to go 'round sighing and beatin' my breast over it like your bloody Angel. Seems to me all the weepin' and wailin' in the world isn't going to accomplish as much as a genuine intent to not do it again. I have gone against the very nature of what I've been for over a *century* for you, Slayer! The past is the past, it can't change, but *I* can and if you're goin' around making considerations for special circumstances, then at least be bloody consistent about it."  
  
"So, what, I'm supposed to give you the benefit of the doubt?" she scoffs. "I'm supposed to believe that just because you've been physically restrained from killing for a couple years, you're no longer a remorseless predator who would snack out on the locals if given half a chance? That you've seen the light and reformed your ways? Should I stop and take a survey before I slay each vampire? 'Excuse me, can you tell me if you have any extenuating circumstances that might prevent you from going out and killing the next person you come across?' Swell. That will look real great on the headstones of their victims--'she gave him a chance.' Not to mention mine, assuming I'm allowed to stay dead long enough to find out."  
  
"I'm not talking about other vampires. I'm talkin' about me. If I were going to kill again, don't you think I'd start with you?" he asks softly. "I had the chance, luv--a number of times, if you recall. I think I can say your guard was well and truly down the other night, can't I?"  
  
"Only because you wanted something else from me..."  
  
"And that's why I spent the nearly five months you were dead playing demon huntin' games with your mates? Why I watched their backs? Why I looked out for Niblet? Had to impress a corpse, right?"  
  
"Spike, I get it, okay? You helped, you've done good deeds, and if you're looking for thanks, then fine. Thank you. But--you're a vampire. You don't have a soul. You don't have whatever it is that makes us see other people as something more than food. You don't have whatever it is that will keep you from deciding to go all serial killer the moment it's convenient for you to do it."  
  
"I have a choice." He winces, thinking of the woman in the alley the night he suspected the chip had stopped working. He'd been too bloody fixated on salving his wounded pride from the sting of her latest rejection, on proving something to himself, to consider how he was undermining everything he'd been trying to convince her of for months. Any doubts he has entertained that a soulless vampire is capable of feeling remorse and regret are now fully laid to rest. Bloody idiot--what the hell had he been thinking?   
  
On the other hand, it had also been that incident in the alley that made him realize that as much as it was for her that he was trying to overcome the drive inside him that constantly demanded, "Kill! Feed!" it was also she who could infuriate him to the point where he said, "sod it all" and went back to what felt natural. He'd been relieved to find the chip was still working, that he couldn't kill just because Buffy pissed him off enough to ignore his resolve. He doesn't want to know what might happen if he's free to kill before he's reached some sort of peace within himself and with her. One way or another, the standoff has to end. "I have my own bloody free will."  
  
"You have a demon inside you telling you to kill people and eat them--what's free will against that? You don't give a wild predator a 'chance' to decide not to kill someone. You kill it before it kills some harmless bystander whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time."  
  
"An animal doesn't have the ability to make choices, pet. I do."  
  
"I don't believe that," she says, her eyes dropping to the floor. "I can't. I don't believe that change is just as easy as saying 'I won't do it again.' It can't be."  
  
"Then what's Red doin' at home alone with li'l sis right now?"  
  
"That's different--Willow's not a monster. She's human--a human with problems that she's trying to overcome. How many times do I have to say it? You're not human, Spike."  
  
"Look who's callin' the kettle black."  
  
"What I am or am not--assuming you're even right about that--isn't the issue here. We're talking about you--"  
  
"But we're not, are we, Slayer? Let's cut past the excuses to get to the real heart of the matter, which is another vampire entirely."  
  
"Leave him out of this..."  
  
"Why should I? Have you?"  
  
She glares at him. "I am *not* discussing Angel with you."  
  
"The hell you're not. You've been measuring me by his yardstick all along, and we both know it. You can at least do me the courtesy of bein' honest about it. Face it, Slayer--you don't want to believe I'm capable of being more than a monster because you don't like what it tells you about *him*."  
  
"And what would that be?" she demands scathingly.  
  
"That when he went all Angelus, he could have chosen not to kill, that even without his soul, he could have still loved you--and he didn't. You can't accept that it's possible, even theoretically, because you can't accept he wouldn't have done it if he could have."  
  
He expects her to try to walk out again, certain that this time he's crossed a line she will not tolerate, but he's in all the way now. He's the one who wanted to have it out, after all. They might as well have it all out, even though he's fairly certain he won't be happy with what she has to say, providing she does him the courtesy of answering him instead of just staking his ass and having done with it.  
  
He's not prepared for the wounded look she gives him, the turmoil in her eyes. Even as he watches her, she's shuttering it away, sealing it inside again, but just for a moment, he breached her defenses. Strange how he doesn't feel at all victorious.  
  
"You're right," she says at last, pushing herself away from the pillar to stand on her own two feet. Her hands are clenched in fists at her sides, and her voice is ragged. "Maybe you are capable of change, but I'll never know, because I'll never believe it's a possibility, and nothing you can say will change that, because I will never accept that he could have still loved me, but didn't."  
  
Her shoulders slump tiredly and she turns to shuffle toward the door. This is not the theatrical stomping her earlier histrionics had produced. This is just too close to defeat for his comfort. Too close to where she seemed to be that night he tended to her bloodied and shredded hands. Too close to where she was the night he prevented her from dancing to her death. She's shutting down, sealing off the pain and anything else that keeps her alive in the process.  
  
"He did love you, pet," he finally replies, by which time she already has the door open and ready to pull shut behind her. "That's the point."  
  
"I'd like to think I know what love looks like, Spike," she answers without looking back, her head bowed. He's only inches behind her now, but he makes no move to touch her. He can tell by the hunched set of her shoulders, the coiled tension in her posture, that she'll rip his arm off if he tries. "That wasn't it."  
  
"Wasn't it?" he murmurs. "Hate--love. It's all the same in the end."  
  
"Spare me the 'flip sides of the same coin' cliche, please."  
  
"If you insist. I'm just saying that one can't exist without the other. You made him feel human, pet. You made him feel all the things us monsters aren't supposed to feel, to make him think he wasn't what he was, and that's why he wanted to kill you. He hated you because he loved you."  
  
She doesn't react for a long moment--he can't even hear her breathe. Then a painful shudder rips through her body, startling him so much that he jumps back from her. When she turns to face him, the lost, hollow look he's become so familiar with is on her face once more. It's the look she wore on the stairs of her house before they went to their final confrontation with Glory, the one that said she had already unplugged herself from this world. It's the look she wore again on those same steps as she faced him with her hands bloody from clawing her way out of her coffin, and again in the shaded alley behind the Magic Box just a couple days after her return. It's the look she wore in the Bronze as she pleaded with a demon for a reason to live.  
  
"What's your excuse?" she finally asks in a raspy whisper.  
  
It takes him a moment to figure what she means, and then he shrugs with a self-deprecating smirk. "Sheer bloody-mindedness, I s'pose."  
  
"Translate." She breathes as steps forward, toward him, away from the door, and the expression on her face is so focused, so desperately intent that he finds himself retreating from her now.  
  
"Since the night I died, everything I've ever done has been the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. Existin' for the next insurmountable obstacle, the next all or nothin' gamble, riskin' death at the hands of the Slayer or an angry mob time and again. Throwing all the mystique and drama vampires are supposed to hide behind to the wind and flaunting what I was and what I did...Always after the next challenge, the next convention I could thwart."  
  
She stops her approach, and her face hardens a little, her mouth tightening, and a flicker of something akin to anger animates her eyes for a moment. "So you meant what you said the other morning. It's not about me. It's about attaining the unattainable, about winning a victory." Her lips draw back into a sneer with the last word, and before she's finished, he's shaking his head.  
  
"Bloody hell! No, Buffy, that's not what I'm sayin' at all. It's not what I was sayin' then, either. I'm sayin' that you're everything a monster like me is supposed to despise, not treasure. I loved you...because I hated you." He reaches out a tentative hand to touch her hair and she nearly flinches from the caress. Her dark eyes drill into him mercilessly, and her chest begins heaving as she draws harsh, rapid breaths. Just when he thinks she might hyperventilate, she flings herself at him, pulling his head down to meet her lips.  
  
Her kiss is desperate, hungry, feral...she's devouring him, and he's helpless not to respond, letting her pin him against the pillar and clutching her closer, lips and teeth and tongues mashing and waging war with one another. He's the one without a pulse, but her lips are cold against his, her fingers chilly against the back of his neck where they clutch the base of his skull. Her breathing is still labored, blowing cool against his face and even as his body responds to her passion, even as his hands bury in her hair and claim twin fistfuls of it like trophies of war, he pulls away from her kiss to meet her eyes.  
  
She looks like a caged, wounded animal, the one ready to gnaw off it's own leg because it doesn't know how else to make the pain stop. There's a part of him that doesn't care, that wants to go with it, let her use him to alleviate the pain, that will enjoy every second of it and wake up in the morning singing. But that's also the part of him that will want to go out and kill something--maybe even her--when she wakes up deciding it was all a mistake and feeling the need to put him back in his place. It's the part that will eventually destroy him--and possibly her.  
  
She's reaching for him again, pulling him back to her, and he has to grab her wrists to break her grip in his head, ducking from her questing lips. "Buffy, luv--stop."  
  
"No," she pants softly, still trying to reach him. "Spike...please..."  
  
He grabs her shoulders and gives her an abrupt shake. "Slayer, stop! There's only ever goin' ta be one animated corpse between the two of us, and I got prior claim, you got that?" he growls.  
  
Her eyes grow huge, nearly bulging, her face draining of blood then flushing a vivid red an instant before her fist flashes out at him. He's too close--she doesn't have enough momentum behind the punch to move him or break his grasp on her. In a split second, he has her spun around with her back to him, one hand clenched in her hair, pulling her head to the side and the other around her shoulders, pinning her back against the front of her body. To further insure her immobility, he shoves her forward into the pillar, driving the breath from her and trapping her body between his and the hard granite.  
  
He can feel her quivering with fear and rage and the need for battle, and he feels the demon within him respond, trying to rise up and claim its victory. "Is this what you want, Slayer?" he hisses in her ear as his face transforms, his hand grabbing her jaw roughly as the other jerks her head aside even harder by her hair. "I could snap your neck here an' now, you know I could." His lips move from her ear to her throat as he nuzzles the artery there, feeling the blood pulsing rapidly beneath the surface of the fine, scarred skin. "Or I could bite you, suck the life from you the same way you're trying to suck the death from me. Is that how you want it? 'Cause I can do it! Hell, I'd even enjoy it." He stops, pulling his mouth away from her vulnerable neck and shudders with the effort of forcing down the demon.  
  
When his mouth touches her ear again, his face is smooth, his fangs gone. This time the nuzzle is a caress, not a sampling of the aromas of the available feast. "But I won't do it. I choose not to. I won't let you use me that way. You want to feel alive, and you think by shaggin' me or fightin' with me or both, you can get a taste of it all, life an' death and everything in between. All the fire you think you're missin'. It's the only thing that keeps you from completely wantin' to die. But it's not enough, Slayer. I don't want you dead, or half-alive. I want you living, and I'm not going to settle for less."  
  
He kisses the side of her neck lightly, letting his tongue touch her flesh, tasting her in the way of a lover rather than a predator. He hears her mewl lightly, can smell her surge of arousal, and backs away enough to pull her around to face him. When his hands slide into her hair, they do so leisurely, savoring the silk and gold of her. Her eyes are closed and her lips open, her expression hovering somewhere between pain and anxiety and rapture. He lets his lips brush hers in a whisper-soft kiss and she grabs for him, hands clenching on his biceps, mouth opening, trying to suck him into another desperate kiss. He pulls back, just out of her reach until she settles, then dips his head back to hers.  
  
Something in him lightens, and he fills with elation at the knowledge that this is the first time he's kissed her, and that she's allowing it, responding to him. His lips slide across hers, parting them, tongue swiping across them lightly. His hands cup her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. He pulls away after a second with a sense of wonder, only now realizing that in over 120 years, this is the closest he's come to touching absolutely purity.  
  
Her eyes are open, surprised and troubled, but somehow more alive and aware than they had been before. Was this how Prince Charming felt, he wondered, when he awoke Sleeping Beauty from her hundred-year sleep with a kiss?  
  
"I--I have to go," she says softly, backing away from him slowly. He relinquishes his hold on her with only a little regret and nods his acceptance.  
  
"I can't be here--with you--until I have this worked out," she says as he continues to watch her move toward the door. "I know you get that."  
  
"I get it," he replies gruffly. "But you need to know--I'm done chasin' after you, Slayer. I won't do it anymore."  
  
Her eyes snap shut and he thinks he can see her shudder again. "Are you saying you're leaving?" she asks with what appears to be an effort.  
  
A loud guffaw escapes him before he has the opportunity to restrain it. Her eyes begin to blaze with anger again while he chuckles, "Not a chance, pet. I'm not goin' anywhere. Ever." It only takes a second for him to compose himself again. "I'll be here when you come looking for me," he promises. "I'll even be here to help when Dawn needs rescuin' again or there's some nasty you can't fight alone. And when you've got this--" he gestures back and forth between them with a careless hand, "--worked out, well, then I'll still be here."  
  
She nods in acceptance of this, gnawing on her lip a little, before she finally turns and walks out of the crypt, shutting the door behind her. Only when she is gone does he allow himself to slump against the pillar, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with trembling hands.  
  
"Soddin' Prince Charming, indeed," he mutters scathingly, shaking his head in amused disgust. He casts one more yearning glance at the door, then flings himself back into the chair before the television. "Huh! Not bloody likely."  
  
END 


End file.
